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Today's News

The Foothills Park & Recreation District hired an extermination company to kill hundreds of prairie dogs Wednesday at Clement Park. Workers placed toxic fumigation pellets into virtually every den in the native-grass area south of the Columbine Memorial, stuffing the burrows with newspaper and covering them with dirt.

Complaints from the bordering neighborhood prompted the move, said Foothills spokeswoman Kate Dragoo.

District Attorney Scott Storey is warning citizens of a telephone scam that has resurfaced in Jefferson County. In the last few days, several people have called the DA’s office to report that they have received disturbing automated phone calls alleging to be from their bank or credit union.

In doubleheaders, most teams are content to get a split. But for the Dakota Ridge summer league baseball team, it left the field knowing it should have won both games of the Eagles’ doubleheader with Castle View on June 18 at Dakota Ridge High School.

Proposals to shrink the popular off-leash dog park at Chatfield State Park are drawing criticism from canine enthusiasts, who say their groups’ views have not been fairly considered. Those groups say proposed changes don’t reflect their interests and that the modifications won’t decrease conflicts among park visitors.

Users of the off-leash area object to a proposal to halve the size of the dog park, to fence the area, and to discontinue access to the South Platte River.

After crafting a deal to acquire 19 acres in the Rooney Valley last December, Jeffco officials portrayed the purchase as a routine Open Space buy and kept secret the transaction’s role in settling a lawsuit by a group of developers, a Courier investigation shows.

A lawsuit currently pending against the county charges that the machinations contributed to Jeffco’s top administrator, Jim Moore, being fired after he voiced objections to the lack of transparency.

The sky was clear and the weather was mild — just right for championship baseball. The audience was cheering and the coaches were yelling out instructions, but for the boys and girls on the field there was nothing else happening in the world.

The arraignment for suspected Deer Creek Middle School gunman Bruco Eastwood was rescheduled Monday following a request from a defense lawyer. Discovery documents in the case have burgeoned to about 5,000 pages, and the defense has yet to fully review all of them.

“With regard to the expansive discovery, I would like to have gone through that,” public defender Thea Reiff said about reviewing the documents before Eastwood enters a plea.

A string of burglaries in South Jeffco has prompted the Sheriff’s Office to urge residents to practice the simple precaution of closing their garage doors. Thieves have boldly entered at least three local homes and another in the northern part of the county since May 17 through open garage doors.

“Normally it’s a quick hit,” sheriff’s spokesman Mark Techmeyer said. “But you don’t often see this, where they’ll make entry into the house.”

Heading into an election without an opponent, Sheriff Ted Mink isn’t worried about staying in office. But in an interview, he stressed the upcoming challenges his department will face.

Though the Sheriff’s Office has yet to lay off any employees in the face of an expected budget decline, the looming shortfall will present challenges. And a new state law likely will put additional stress on the jail.